This was a tale about two brothers on a journey given to them by a king. I was very happy to read this book because I enjoyed the idea behind the book. Set in what was probably medieval times, although that fact was very vague more of a discernment then anything, the main character and his brother go adventuring; a topic sentence full of possibilities. They did indeed go on adventures and see many fantastical places, but I was not sold on many parts of the story. The fruit and even some smells take on abstract names such as wisdom, mercy, and grace and when this happened it was very hard for me to understand what that could taste like or smell of, so this threw me for a loop every time it was mentioned. What I found really interesting was the fact that Barto was the main character yet in the grand scheme of things this was more a story about Artemerio then Barto, and to set up of the story in such a manner is very interesting , not the most effective way to tell the story but it was very different. In this case Artemerio is seem as the slower brother and Barto takes on the favorite position because he seems wises and more level headed yet his brother gets the best reward at the end. It just made things very muddy in my mind. Also, the entire story is an allegory, which I thought was really neat and cool, but this was another part that I was not sold on. I got and enjoyed the idea of it but the actual in-the-moment-function of the allegory was not smooth enough. I have a lot of respect for this book and the author, it was a good story, written very well, I just did not love it, I did liked it. ( )